"The Rules of Luton"

From:  David Acheson (dkach@hot44mail.com)
Date:  Mon, 27 Jul 1998 03:17:49 EDT
Subj:  Space1999: The Rules of Luton

A new episode for discussion this week - THE RULES OF LUTON. As having control over the year two direction and scripts filmed to this point of discussion were not enough, the great Fred Freiberger himself decided to try his hand at writing an episode of the series. This was the first of three he would eventually contribute to the second season. Strangely enough he wrote them under a pseudonym, Charles Woodgrove. Was he embarrased by them? Not likely as our exhibitionist producer was one of the first to push this fact. So why the penname?

So what do I think of Freiberger's attempt at writing for SPACE: 1999? Despite the constant negative criticism from listmembers (too silly in most fans' opinions) I am actually more bored with it than anything. Yes, the story of talking plants and a prolonged chase by three stereotypical aliens (strong, transport, and invisible) is rather silly but is it really sillier than THE TAYBOR? That comical entry in the series was intentionally silly and I liked it on that merit but it just was not part of the usual 1999 universe. Our Alphans appear to be back to their normal universe despite a mainly one dimensional storyline (with the exception of one moment to be discussed below). It is exactly here where Freiberger failed as a screenwriter and ultimately as series producer as his handle on the series kept much of it one dimensional. This is not to say there were not some great moments in year two but these seem to be due to more experienced hands that battled Freiberger all the way or were just clever enough to run circles around him. Enough said though.

The idea of intelligent plant life is not a totally unbelievable concept but it could have been handled a lot more interestingly. The whole vegetable versus animal conflict was transformed into a remake of the STAR TREK episode, THE GAMESTERS OF TRISKELION (which itself was rather silly).

Sometimes even Freiberger himself did not have a clue as to his own set up for the series. We know that Maya could only hold her transformations for an hour but she did not necessarily have to transform back into herself before changing again. And yet this appears to be the case when she is captured and caged in the form of a bird. I remember reading once about Freiberger being asked about this point. He waved it off as writers' licence. Yes, but he was the fellow who created the character and concept in the first place. Did he think much through in producing the second year or made it up as they went along?

However, Freiberger did shine and partially redeems himself in one rather important moment of the episode and perhaps the whole second season. It is the sequence where Maya and Koenig take a rest and discuss some of their past history. For the first time since BREAKAWAY we know something about Koenig other than being a astronaut cadet who was a friend of Victor Bergman. His being a loner (as an orphan) tells a lot about Koenig's ability to easily separate work from friendship and indeed his inabilty to make quick friends. In fact, the death of his wife in a short-lived nuclear war would be the final nail in his overall pessimism towards mankind. Yet, because he survived all past tragedies, he has become a stronger person and right for a command position. Magically, the Koenig of year one is explained.

As for Maya, we end all the speculating since THE METAMORPH and have a real understanding of her sheltered but loving relationship with her father and even Mentor's whole reason for not abandoning Psychon like most of the race had. It must have created a strain on both Mentor and Maya knowing that her brother obviously did not share the same connection and left the dying world. This was the kind of moment that should have been carried further into the series.

Now was the above moment a result of Freiberger humanizing the characters or just a filler because THE RULES OF LUTON was the first of the famous double-up episodes and Catherine Schell and Martin Landau virtually had to carry the episode themselves? Anyone?

The director this time around was veteran Val Guest. He had worked on many British series and feature films (including some classic sci-fi B films) as both a director and writer. His works actually date back to the 1930's. This was his first entry in the series (others would soon follow) and despite the overall unconvincing storyline he does a rather good job.

Thats my take on the plant episode. Lower than middle in quality but there were still sillier and more repugnant episodes. ALL THAT GLISTERS is just one of those.

David Acheson

From:  jcg@vh4tag.net
Date:  Tue, 28 Jul 1998 22:03:28 -0400
Subj:  Space1999: The Rules Of Luton

I've always thought the voice of the Luton Judges sounded like Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. It would be nice to hear the trees break out into a chorus of Songs From The Wood.

The commlock image of the trees was actually a color slide (or photo) inside a hollowed out prop. I'm not too sure why they did this, unless they wanted the image to be in color, or they didn't want to deal with having to rig up the working commlock (considering the double up filming.)

Notice Landau is holding the commlock with his hand on the top of it, but the closeup of it has the hand holding it from underneath.

Those of you who discuss characterization will probably go over the fact that Koenig jumps instantly to the military view of kill the enemy, but Maya argues for non-killing.

I said a few reviews back that I would eat my words, and here it is (pass the salt): They included closeups of the monitor in the eagle, despite the side angle where you could see the actor in the chair (in this case Anholt) and the side mounted monitor. This of course is to vary the shots, just as you would do if there were two people physically in the scene.

All of the shots of the lion were stock footage (since of course we do not see the lion in the same shot with Transport.)

Are we all asking why Maya doesn't change form so she can carry the heavy lance instead of the injured Koenig?

I find Koenig a little too flip in those first couple of scenes.

The Act III discussion about Psychon and Koenig's wife is my favorite in the entire series. And it looks like he is crying at the end as he remembers his late wife...nice to see that in a hero.

The final time Koenig talks to the Judges, the hand on the close up of the commlock matches how Landau is holding it.

My girlfriend, who has watched some of the year twos asked me why Maya doesn't just change into a bug and crawl out of the cage...since she remembers Maya changing directly from one creature into another in a previous episode.

Are there two different sets of trees in the finale?

Physics time: the Judges can obscure all of the sensors, and yet the eagle doesn't react to the physical presence of the planet when Tony is flying through the atmosphere at space velocities?

Alpha is signaling Koenig, and Maya's commlock picks it up?

I don't despise this episode as many others seem to do. Because of that one dialog scene, I have a warm place for this one. I still have bigger problems with A Force Of Life, Ring Around The Moon and to a lesser extent All That Glisters.

I of course haven't mentioned once again aliens that have complete control over everything without a hint of technology. Again why I liked The Taybor. But I like variety, so a run and jump here and there is all right with me.

From:  LKJ1999@aol4tag.com
Date:  Tue, 28 Jul 1998 22:16:54 EDT
Subj:  Space1999: Rules Of Luton Bloppers.

There are sure alot of bloppers in this episode!

NO.1 When Alien Strong points across the river, and turns his head, you can see a mans neck under the all that hair! You can also see his wrist!

NO.2 When Maya is a Hawk, and the vines try to get her, you can see fishing line pulling the vines!

NO.3 When Alien Invisible goes thru the big bush, when the bush slaps back, You can see fishing line that was used to pull the bush apart!!!

Chas P.

From:  LKJ1999@aol4tag.com
Date:  Wed, 29 Jul 1998 06:46:00 EDT
Subj:  Re: Space1999: Rules Of Luton Bloppers.

Sorry, i should have said Alien Transport!!! NOT Alien Strong! Also Alien Transport is up in a tree, when You can see his neck..

Chas P.

From:  Tom Miller (tmiller@north44net.org)
Date:  Tue, 28 Jul 1998 22:57:37 -0400
Subj:  Space1999: Rules does not rule

I saw so many Star Trek ties that I felt it was weak. Kirk, battled the gorn, Keonig battled some pre-chewabacca beasts.

No, I won't kill him, is the most overused storyline in sci fi history.

Rate this one, a D.

Ps, I am not totally against year two, but after reviewing the episodes in the cyberary, I found only a few I truly liked.

Tom

From:  LKJ1999@aol4tag.com
Date:  Wed, 29 Jul 1998 06:47:50 EDT
Subj:  Re: Space1999: Rules does not rule

I hope SpaceWarp was one You liked...

Chas P.

From:  djlerda@juno4tag.com
Date:  Wed, 29 Jul 1998 02:48:09 EDT
Subj:  Space1999: Rules of Luton

I don't hate this one as much as some other Year 2 episodes (All That Blisters, Space Warp, Beta Cloud, Catacrumbs of the Moon) but it is definitely not a favorite. It is basically that good old standby, "Arena" by Frederic Brown trotted out again. ("Arena" was also done on the original "Outer Limits").

I also liked that scene with Maya and Koenig. It did feel a little out of focus with the universe presented in Year 1. Don't ask me why but it just felt like a World War III scenario seemed inconsistent. But I still like the scene. So I'm schizophrenic.

The alien costumes are worse than laughable. Even the gorn looked more realistic and that was clearly a guy in a suit.

Overall grade: D (would be a D- except for Maya and Koenig's scene).

Off topic: I think Catherine Ross would have done a great job as Dr. Russell. But I can't see anyone but Landau as Koenig. It's a shame he was blackisted so long in the States after "Mission: Impossible." He didn't really do much after 1999 until "Ed Wood" did he? I mean except for "Meteor", the "Deep Impact" of the 70's.

David J Lerda

From:  LKJ1999@aol4tag.com
Date:  Wed, 29 Jul 1998 06:51:24 EDT
Subj:  Re: Space1999: Rules of Luton

I hope You don't hate any S-1999 episode! And how could You hate SpaceWarp???

Chas P.

From:  Ina Litera (ilitera@idt4tag.net)
Date:  Wed, 29 Jul 1998 12:27:43 +0000
Subj:  Space1999: Triffid in Luton and OT heading down east

Hey all,

Coming out of lurking mode to say I'm heading out of town for a week. For anyone who happens to be in the beautiful state of Maine on Sat. Aug 1 , I will be playing with the Arcady Festival Orchestra at the Maine Fair at 2 and 6pm. We'll be performing Saint-Saens Carnival of the Animals which ties in well to this weeks discussion of "Luton"- (there being no animals )

Personnally I think it would have been a far more interesting episode with a few triffids walking around. (now there was an evil plant)

Later,
Ina

From:  "Petter Ogland" (petter.ogland@dnmi4tag.no)
Date:  Wed, 29 Jul 1998 13:26:24 +0000
Subj:  Re: Space1999: Rules of Luton

David Lerda wrote:

I don't hate this one as much as some other Year 2 episodes (All That Blisters, Space Warp, Beta Cloud, Catacrumbs of the Moon) but it is definitely not a favorite. It is basically that good old standby, "Arena" by Frederic Brown trotted out again. ("Arena" was also done on the original "Outer Limits").

Interesting this. According to my taste ALL THAT GLISTERS and CATACOMBS OF THE MOON do not rate all that badly with the Year Two episodes actually. ALL THAT GLISTERS is interesting in it's own wacky way, close to an Ed Wood hommage SPACE:1999 style, but at with a decent ecological theme. Its message about the limited resources on this planet and how cowboy attitudes is a direct threat to how we can demolish ourselves is not all that bad, I feel. In fact, in all its absurdness I think it is quite all right.

CATACOMBS OF THE MOON is a typical Anthony Terpiloff episode, I think. As I'm not a great fan of his contribution to the series, personally finding his INFERNAL MACHINE and some of his other efforts a good way below average in Year One, the seriousness of his content, a dying mans queries about life and death, are certainly different from the usual Freiberger/Woodgrove run-around.

What puzzles me, however, is that there seem to be intelligent people who like DEATH'S OTHER DOMINION and THE INFERNAL MACHINE, perhaps even EARTHBOUND and COLLISION COURSE too, but then have very little nice to say about CATACOMBS OF THE MOON. How can this be so? From my point of view CATACOMBS OF THE MOON seem to be more or less a carbon copy of his previous works, right down to the literary refernces, Dante's inferno this time, only spiced up a bit by Freiberger production values. Is it the Freiberger touch that people dislike?

It would be very interesting to have some comments on this, David.

Well, saying that I find ALL THAT GLISTERS and CATACOMBS OF THE MOON better than RULES OF LUTON I would perhaps not say that it is completely unedible.

The problem with the Woodgrove episodes, the way I see it, is that they seem to be absolutely devoid of meaning. At least from an initial point of view there is difficult to see anything but plot and structure, that is people running, fighting, solving problems and so on. There seem to be no deeper meaning about world economy, ecology, human alienation or other things typical of a SPACE:1999 episode.

I also liked that scene with Maya and Koenig. It did feel a little out of focus with the universe presented in Year 1. Don't ask me why but it just felt like a World War III scenario seemed inconsistent. But I still like the scene. So I'm schizophrenic.

Yes. Martin Willey calls the world view expressed by Maya and Koenig in this scene as "Nazi paradise". Horribly banal and awful.

The alien costumes are worse than laughable. Even the gorn looked more realistic and that was clearly a guy in a suit.

Well I suppose one shouldn't blame Freiberger for location shots and costumes, pulling plants by fishing lines etc. I suppose Keith Wilson and Val Guest are the ones responsible for this, but even the best costumes and special effects would have little consequence for the episode, I feel, certainly not making it any better.

The thing I question myself when watching this kind of material is what kind of person would write anything like this? Is there a philosophy to the work of Freiberger?

Petter

From:  "Atomic Possum" (atomicpossum@toast4tag.net)
Date:  Wed, 29 Jul 1998 11:00:58 -0500
Subj:  Re: Space1999: Rules of Luton

Its message about the limited resources on this planet and how cowboy attitudes is a direct threat to how we can demolish ourselves is not all that bad,

At least it MIGHT be, IF it were in there.

view CATACOMBS OF THE MOON seem to be more or less a carbon copy of his previous works, right down to the literary refernces, Dante's inferno this time, only spiced up a bit by Freiberger production values. Is it the Freiberger touch that people dislike?

Personally, I don't actively dislike CATACOMBS. It's not the greatest ep, but it has some interesting notions--and is, perhaps, the most metaphysical episode of the second season...

The problem with the Woodgrove episodes, the way I see it, is that they seem to be absolutely devoid of meaning. At least from an initial point of view there is difficult to see anything but plot and structure, that is people running, fighting, solving problems and so on. There seem to be no deeper meaning about world economy, ecology, human alienation or other things typical of a SPACE:1999 episode.

That's not the main problem with them, Petter. THe main problem is that the plot is always so simplistic--run around, fight. Your disliked INFERNAL MACHINE, even if you want to avoid what it's really about, at least is interesting as a plot: Koenig et al trying to face a greater power that is petulant, abusive, and completely uncoerned with their point of view. Their only method to avoid the being's captivity is to try to argue their way out--or, ultimately, killing it through an act of desperation, which they would have preferred not to do.

The Woodgrove plots, however, usually operate on a very superficial level:

Koenig and Maya fight for their lives--that's all there is to it. There's no differing ideas to deal with, no more concepts other than that.

Some creature wants the Alphan life support system--that's all (and we don't even know WHY!).

Maya is sick and delirious, while Tony and John are lost in space. That's it.

You can pretty much understand each of these episodes in their totality with a single line to sum them up--and that's what makes them less satisfying to watch. Give a more interesting plot, and the episode will work. The problem is that these are completely devoid of any nuance whatsoever.

The thing I question myself when watching this kind of material is what kind of person would write anything like this? Is there a philosophy to the work of Freiberger?

"Get it out on time," I think.

Jon "Mr. Wonderful" Stadter

From:  "Ellen C. Lindow" (sfdxb@scfn.thpl4tag.lib.fl.us)
Date:  Wed, 29 Jul 1998 12:08:36 -0400 (EDT)
Subj:  Re: Space1999: Rules of Luton

Yes. Martin Willey calls the world view expressed by Maya and Koenig in this scene as "Nazi paradise". Horribly banal and awful.

I 'm kind of confused by the above statement about a Nazi paradise. The prediction of a racially based WWIII is not something that seems particularly far fetched to me, although I do have some reservations about the human race being able to come out the other side of a war like this and still have the resources to build a space program. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the reference. Which side of the war would have been a Nazi paradise?

Racism is an insidious problem that many of us deal with on a day to day basis. I teach in a racially diverse school in a rural setting, and an undercurrent of tension is always there. Although there are exceptions in all situations, I watch students from different cultures and economic groups shun, insult, fight with and be rude to each other on a daily basis. And frequently, when they talk to me on a personal level, the children are confused and hurt by what they do to each other (and I have a reptuation for being one of the adults here that all the kids can talk to, without regards to color.) I have frequently been asked by students why another student won't cooperate, or work with them. It breaks my heart when they ask "Is it because I'm _________(fill in color of your choice)"

Since facism breeds on racism, it seems to me the scenario Koenig describes is quite likely to occur, and still may.

From:  David Acheson (dkach@hot44mail.com)
Date:  Wed, 29 Jul 1998 12:39:38 EDT
Subj:  Space1999: Catacombs and stuff

Actually I liked CATACOMBS OF THE MOON. An interesting episode indeed but I am not going into it right now. That episode is still way off.

As for Petter thinking ALL THAT GLISTERS is a fun sort of episode in a ED WOOD sort of way? First Petter, Ed Wood would have produced something even more trashy than Fred Freiberger's "Hanna-Barbera" approach as you are used to calling it. Can you imagine Ed Wood's DORZAK. Cross-dressing transvetites hauling Dorzak to a prison world. Scary!

Why people defend ALL THAT GLISTERS and trash CATACOMBS is beyond me. I can see people not liking the latter but GLISTERS was just plain bad. If there was an ecological message to that rock episode I fail to see it. If Keith Miles didn't write it badly then it was Freiberger that reduced it to a lifeless pathetic dud. Shermeen Williams should have been on this episode so they could leave both her and the rock behind.

LUTON suffers from Freiberger's comic book approach but the discussion scene between Landau and Schell (two of the best actors in the series) gave it one good moment that again was one of season two's better points.

As for the recent talk about why season one fans dislike season two I think I summed that all up very nicely in my THE RULES OF LUTON review on Monday. Freiberger kept much of the show one dimensional so it did not have the same pyschological approach as year one. But lets remember season two had its own fans who liked the action adventure formula. While a lot of year two was just flash in my opinion I do admit there were some good highlights. 1999 at its worst back in 1976-1977 was still better than much of the sci-fi stuff out to that date. However, today it suffers badly. But lets not forget that season two had changes only because of problems with season one. Year two fans love to remind everyone of that fact and they are right to do so.

I feel its going to be an interesting weekly episode discussion during the remainder of the series.

David Acheson

From:  Petter Ogland (petter.ogland@dnmi4tag.no)
Date:  Wed, 29 Jul 1998 16:49:40 +0000
Subj:  Re: Space1999: The Rules of Luton

he wrote them under a pseudonym, Charles Woodgrove. Was he embarrased by them? Not likely as our exhibitionist producer was one of the first to push this fact. So why the penname?

Interesting question. When Anderson wanted to make the original SPACE:1999 he was being told by Abe Mandell that all of the stories should be in outer space and there should be no "tea in the Midlands".

I wonder if Charles Woodgrove was an inside joke, Freiberger trying to sound as much "tea in the Midlands" as possible when making his contributions.

So what do I think of Freiberger's attempt at writing for SPACE: 1999? Despite the constant negative criticism from listmembers (too silly in most fans' opinions) I am actually more bored with it than anything.

I totally agree. I feel that ALL THAT GLISTERS is about as silly as this, but it is far more enjoyable. In that episode you can at least watch the actors trying to do something, and even when being at its most absurd, it comes much closer to absurd theatre than something like this.

Yes, the story of talking plants and a prolonged chase by three stereotypical aliens (strong, transport, and invisible) is rather silly but is it really sillier than THE TAYBOR? That comical entry in the series was intentionally silly and I liked it on that merit but it just was not part of the usual 1999 universe.

There have been many complaints about THE TAYBOR, not everybodys cup of tea, I suppose, going light comedy. Nevertheless, the underpinnings about trading societies, world economy and alienation inherit in the capitalistic society were serious enough and made the episode an interesting entry in the bizarre universe of Year Two, I think.

Our Alphans appear to be back to their normal universe despite a mainly one dimensional storyline (with the exception of one moment to be discussed below).

Well, this is one way to see it, I suppose. Personally I feel that this episode shows the Alphans in a different universe almost with a similar consequence as with the leap from THE TESTAMENT OF ARKADIA to THE METAMORPH. No matter how silly the journey of Year Two is, there is almost all the time some type of meta-narrative about the human condition. THE RULES OF LUTON is the first departure from this, I think, feeling the story seem more likely to have been written by Freibergers four year old daughter than himself. Well, at least initially it feels so.

The idea of intelligent plant life is not a totally unbelievable concept but it could have been handled a lot more interestingly. The whole vegetable versus animal conflict was transformed into a remake of the STAR TREK episode, THE GAMESTERS OF TRISKELION (which itself was rather silly).

Yes, and if one would like to watch something intelligent about plant life one could of course always return to THE TROUBLED SPIRIT.

However, Freiberger did shine and partially redeems himself in one rather important moment of the episode and perhaps the whole second season. It is the sequence where Maya and Koenig take a rest and discuss some of their past history.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: These comments touch off another thread: Psychoanalyzing Freiberger?]

MAYA: "I don't see anything."
KOENIG: "Yeah."
He winces & they return to their places. Invisible reappears & resumes climbing. Koenig returns to scraping the belt.
MAYA: "Must you keep at it?"
KOENIG: "Firepower, Maya. In a combat situation there's nothing as persuasive as firepower."

Here we have a peak into Freiberger's philosophy of life, I believe. Firepower was obviously his method when attacking Year One, using firepower terms like "honest adventure", "plastic relationships" and "humour" in order to describe what was good and bad with the original show.

Using this type of firepower tactics it didn't matter that he only saw eight of the original episodes, in fact, I don't think it would have mattered if he had seen them all or none, demanding more humour, more honest adventure and less plastic relationships is something one could say about anything apparently having explosive meanings on something one doesn't really care all that much about.

That's my impressions of the retoric school of Freiberger, anyway. Thank heavens I don't know too many firepower people personally, although one happens to meet the kind every now and then.

MAYA: "What about you, Commander? Did you have any brothers?" ((he shakes his head)) "Sisters? Mother, father? You had nobody?"
KOENIG: "I had a wife."
MAYA: "Had?"
KOENIG: "Weren't there any wars on Psychon?"
MAYA: "No. Unlike your planet we were all of one race, one religion, one government. Our planet was so rich in resources that there was no separation of classes."

This is the part that Martin Willey referred to as "Nazi paradise". Perhaps orthodox Jewish fundamentalism would be better fitting with Freiberger's background. It could be the catch phrase of old Freiberger snr. speaking of King David and a united Israel.

KOENIG: "In nineteen eighty seven all the hatreds on Earth between races, classes and religions, all came to a head. The war was global and awful. It was finally the war to end all wars because the survivors realised that..if there was another one it would be the..the end of humanity."
MAYA: "You mean people killed people just because they were different from each other?" ((he nods)) "That's disgusting."
Meanwhile Invisible climbs the slope.
KOENIG: "The one virtue of that war, if war can have a virtue, is that prejudice was wiped out. People realised if..they were going to survive they would have to...work together, accept each other for what they were. So we began to create a brand new, wonderful civilization."

Freiberger is probably speaking of World War II here, I suppose.

Yet, because he survived all past tragedies, he has become a stronger person and right for a command position. Magically, the Koenig of year one is explained.

I'm not as enthusiastic as you about this, David, but, nevertheless, by Freiberger fantasising about his Brooklyn ghetto background there may be some matches with Landau's Brooklyn ghetto background, and, magically if you prefer, we have some synergetic insight to the John Koenig character.

Well, this is quite a good point, actually, as the behavoural patterns of Freiberger and Koenig do seem quite coincidal. Both seem to be driven by primal means of survival in the urban jungle, not very much sophistication there, and both making equally stupid decisions along the way, being loved and hated by their closest collaborators.

The director this time around was veteran Val Guest. He had worked on many British series and feature films (including some classic sci-fi B films) as both a director and writer. His works actually date back to the 1930's. This was his first entry in the series (others would soon follow) and despite the overall unconvincing storyline he does a rather good job.

In Tim Heald's book among other places there are pictures of Val Guest puffing his pipe and giving directions to Schell and Landau. He doesn't look to enthusiastic about the episode, but as Helena doesn't play much of a part in this one, his infamous exclamations of the difficulties about working with Barbara Bain does probably stem from DORZAK.

Thats my take on the plant episode. Lower than middle in quality but there were still sillier and more repugnant episodes. ALL THAT GLISTERS is just one of those.

Personally I rate ALL THAT GLISTERS far above RULES OF LUTON, ALL THAT GLISTERS being an episode that deals with ideas. RULES OF LUTON may be one of Freiberger's more personal episodes, however, and is interesting int this respect. The dialogue in the sequence with the wounded Koenig may give some insight to Freiberger as a person and a thinker, although I don't feel this is not sufficient for categorising the episode as great.

To me Freiberger as a writer seem to represent a very different culture than the likes of Byrne, Feely, Miles, James, Keyes etc., which is no less apparent than in this episode. On the other hand he does not strike very much worse than Anthony Terpiloff, Art Wallace (MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH before it was saved by Johnny Byrne) or that Art Wallace-like writer who wrote the original draft for DRAGON'S DOMAIN, which makes him below average but still watchable if one is in the right mood and interesting as the man most easily identifiable with the Year Two style.

Petter

From:  "Petter Ogland" (petter.ogland@dnmi4tag.no)
Date:  Wed, 29 Jul 1998 17:03:40 +0000
Subj:  Re: Space1999: Triffid in Luton and OT heading down east

Personnally I think it would have been a far more interesting episode with a few triffids walking around. (now there was an evil plant)

I agree. In my opinion THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS is an example showing that it is, in fact, possible to write intelligently about living plants. If you look at INVATION OF THE BODYSNATCHERS (1956) it is evident that it is possible to make an intelligent run-around too!

Petter

From:  Petter Ogland (petter.ogland@dnmi4tag.no)
Date:  Wed, 29 Jul 1998 17:55:28 +0000
Subj:  Re: Space1999: Catacombs and stuff

As for Petter thinking ALL THAT GLISTERS is a fun sort of episode in a ED WOOD sort of way? First Petter, Ed Wood would have produced something even more trashy than Fred Freiberger's "Hanna-Barbera" approach as you are used to calling it. Can you imagine Ed Wood's DORZAK. Cross-dressing transvetites hauling Dorzak to a prison world. Scary!

Heh heh.

I've seen two or three of the Ed Wood classics. Although I believe I've seen far worse contenders for the golden turkey awards, he has a remarkable odd style, charmingly recreated by Tim Burton in 1994, that fits with his bizarre happenings on the set.

I think ALL THAT GLISTERS has some of this wacky style to it, and Brian Johnsons mix-up of Eagle models and so on just adds to the surrealistic output. What makes the episode more than Salvador Dali on the silver screen, is a rather persistent ecology theme of Keith Miles about the worlds limited resources and how cowboy attitudes are drying out the world that is supposed to water us, I think.

You may argue that either Keith Miles wrote badly or the final product was Freiberger's heavily altered version. Whatever it may be, I think it deserves it's place in the series, and is even quite enjoyable in it's own peculiar way.

As for the recent talk about why season one fans dislike season two I think I summed that all up very nicely in my THE RULES OF LUTON review on Monday. Freiberger kept much of the show one dimensional so it did not have the same pyschological approach as year one.

I wonder if Freiberger was a one dimentional person too or if he just believed that his audience was.

But lets not forget that season two had changes only because of problems with season one. Year two fans love to remind everyone of that fact and they are right to do so.

Yes, and I respect them for that. I see, for instance, that Chas P. is very fond of SPACE WARP, which is perfectly fine although I prefer WAR GAMES myself.

When you speak of problems with season one, you, of course, think in terms of ITC's problems with the North American market, which admittingly was the most interesting market I suppose, although the first season was an enormous success over the rest of the world.

I find it interesting that the RAI in Italy have been airing reruns of Year One more or less constantly since 1976, from what I've understood, rerunning Year Two for the first time now in 1998. In France Year Two was first run in 1988, and in Norway/Sweden Year Two has never been aired although Year One has been rerun several times. As Pierre Fageolle says in his magnificent little book: "Changes were made in order to suit the US and Montreal, although the rest of the world was left in bewilderment".

Well, anyway, although my taste is mostly in good wine, classical music and Year One, as we go about with our analysis I find there are in fact quite a few interesting bits in Year Two as well.

I feel its going to be an interesting weekly episode discussion during the remainder of the series.

Indeed. I enjoy the present RULES OF LUTON very much and there are lots of episodes down the list that a long to put my teeth into.

Petter

From:  djlerda@juno4tag.com
Date:  Wed, 29 Jul 1998 14:06:52 EDT
Subj:  Re: Space1999: Rules of Luton

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the reference. Which side of the war would have been a Nazi paradise?

I'm also a little confused. Any war in the 1999 universe would probably have begun with a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe and quickly escalated to some type of nuclear exchange. The human race would have had its work cut out for it just pulling the pieces together, let alone building Alpha in 12 years. (If I remember correctly, I think Koenig said that the war started in1987). Actually, less than 12 years since Alpha looked fully operational for DRAGON'S DOMAIN. But that was in Year 1 which didn't seem to have any influence on the Year 2 universe.

Since facism breeds on racism, it seems to me the scenario Koenig describes is quite likely to occur, and still may.

I agree that intense, extreme nationalism is a characteristic of fascism. But remember that it was the intense economic upheaval in Germany and Italy that permitted fascist governments to come to power. And we certainly didn't get any indication of a major economic cause behind any WWIII other than the conventional East / West Cold War conflict which was still very much alive in the late '70's.

David J Lerda

From:  djlerda@juno4tag.com
Date:  Wed, 29 Jul 1998 14:19:26 EDT
Subj:  Space1999: Rules of Luton

It would be very interesting to have some comments on this, David.

OK, you asked for it. ALL THAT BLISTERS was just a cheap hack story rip-off of "Devil in the Dark." As I've said before, the SFX Magazine Episode Guide claims that this episode was re-written no less than 5 times during production. It looks it. As for CATACRUMBS, I'll reserve comment until we get to that episode. The other Terpiloff episodes (COLLISION COURSE, DEATH'S OTHER DOMINION, INFERNAL MACHINE) had interesting, complex characters persuing higher causes than just "my faith will conquer your science." The above mentioned episodes involve our lead characters and conflict between them (Koenig vs. Helena in COLLISION COURSE AND DEATH) in addition to the primary conflict of the story.

The problem with the Woodgrove episodes, the way I see it, is that they seem to be absolutely devoid of meaning. At least from an initial point of view there is difficult to see anything but plot and structure, that is people running, fighting, solving problems and so on.

And the problems that they solve are so trivial. Koenig must freeze the mud monster to win his reward - escape from danger. It's just a big yawn.

Yes. Martin Willey calls the world view expressed by Maya and Koenig in this scene as "Nazi paradise". Horribly banal and awful.

Well, I wouldn't go that far. I would just say that even a limited nuclear war would have left such a mess that it wouldn't fit in with the hints of Earth that we saw in BREAKAWAY. And Alpha supposedly represented an international community. If the human race can't make friends with itself, it surely isn't going to be able to build a structure like Alpha.

Well I suppose one shouldn't blame Freiberger for location shots and costumes, pulling plants by fishing lines etc. I suppose Keith Wilson and Val Guest are the ones responsible for this, but even the best costumes and special effects would have little consequence for the episode, I feel, certainly not making it any better.

The location shots were a plus. Just it's hard enough to suspend disbelief with this episode to begin with. The bad costumes make it even more difficult.

The thing I question myself when watching this kind of material is what kind of person would write anything like this? Is there a philosophy to the work of Freiberger?

Yes. We need the script Tuesday. That's when shooting starts.

David J Lerda

From:  South Central (Tamazunchale@web44tv.net)
Date:  Wed, 29 Jul 1998 23:09:58 -0700 (PDT)
Subj:  Space1999: The Bloopers of Luton

Take this bus to Luton!

Anyway, the title for this post is actually misleading. If I am not mistaken, in the dialogue it is mentioned that there is no longer any animal OR INSECT LIFE on the planet!!

This is bold beyond belief (or stupid)--especially as they filmed most of the episode OUTSIDE! Did anybody notice any birds (other than Maya) or insects flying by in the background, foreground, etc? I have watched this episode a few times (not recently though) and look each time. I have never seen anything!

Then again, I have a 13" screen!

Mateo

From:  LKJ1999@aol4tag.com
Date:  Thu, 30 Jul 1998 06:43:53 EDT
Subj:  Re: Space1999: The Bloopers of Luton

Yes! You can see bugs flying around!!! I've never seen any other birds except Maya...

Chas P.

From:  "Willey, Martin J" (martin.willey@eds4tag.com)
Date:  Thu, 30 Jul 1998 06:52:36 -0400
Subj:  Space1999: RE: Rules of Luton & Nazis

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the reference. Which side of the war would have been a Nazi paradise?

My comment was related to the rather fascist description of Psychon-

MAYA: "No. Unlike your planet we were all of one race, one religion, one government. Our planet was so rich in resources that there was no separation of classes."

This is an homogenous society with no differences. Fine, but why is there only one race? They all embrace one monolithic religion- apparently with no debate let alone any argument. A single government with no dissidents- very fascist. No social stratification- so who does the menial jobs? In Metamorph we saw it was alien slaves. The line is not intended to be sinister, but to a cynic like me it implies something nasty.

KOENIG: "In nineteen eighty seven all the hatreds on Earth between races, classes and religions, all came to a head. The war was global and awful. It was finally the war to end all wars because the survivors realised that..if there was another one it would be the..the end of humanity."

This doesn't necessarily mean a nuclear war. Note it is between "races, classes and religions" not between countries as most 20th century wars have been. It sounds more like a global version of Yugoslavia- local religious and cultural conflicts exploding into violence. The sort of race riots and social unrest that occur from time to time in depressed inner cities. I think Freiberger was thinking more of the terrorism that marked the 1970s than the cold war. He's not making any profound political comment here ("prejudice is bad" is as deep as it gets).

KOENIG: "The one virtue of that war, if war can have a virtue, is that prejudice was wiped out. People realised if..they were going to survive they would have to...work together, accept each other for what they were. So we began to create a brand new, wonderful civilization."

We saw no sign of the wonderful civilization in other episodes. According to Dragon's Domain and Breakaway, there was the exactly the same sort of international politics we see today. Can people ever wipe out their prejudices? Maybe I'm too cynical.

Abe Mandell ordered the producers to include monsters (monsters were all the rage in America, he told them). They urgently had to produce stories featuring alien monsters, and try to produce monster costumes. Rules Of Luton is the first episode to obey that- hence the sorry costumes in this episode. All three Freiberger scripts were written quickly to keep the rubber monster quota up and to allow double up shooting. By Bringers Of Wonder, the monsters looked much better. But Abe Mandell returned and ordered no more monsters, as the American market was no longer interested in monsters. Gerry Anderson explains the story in his biography.

Onto some rumours from earlier in the week... (sorry, still catching up!)

This was not a happy cast/crew. Nobody liked Freiberger, Tony Anholt (among others) thought Barbara Bain was a "pain in the a**" and Landau was difficult

According to almost everyone it was a happy crew with very little conflict. Everyone thinks Freiberger was a very nice man (Johnny Byrne always stresses how friendly he was). They didn't like the stories he was producing.

Several people though Bain was difficult, although others liked her. I've never heard she was ill.

I haven't heard any cast or crew comments that Landau was difficult, with the exception of the fight over All That Glisters, which he hated so much he almost walked off the production (but then everyone except Freiberger hated it as well). Landau did have a strong influence on production....

djlerda@juno.com wrote:

According to John Muir's "Exploring Space: 1999", Landau's contract had a large percentage of on-screen time

There was no written clause in Landau's contract for on screen time, but it was an "understanding" by the writers. Landau also sat in on script meetings to influence how stories developed. Noone on the crew seemed to think this was a particular problem, although the writers weren't able to use the supporting cast (Carter, Morrow, Sandra, Kano) as much as they would have liked.

They originally approached Catherine Ross and Robert Culp (of I Spy) to play Helena Russell and John Koenig.

Gerry Anderson denies that Katherine Ross was considered.

>Catherine Schell hated Bain's guts,

I heard Bain hated Schell.

They were suspicious of each other- Maya could usurp Helena's role. According to interviews they were friendly enough on a personal level.

and the Landaus were on the verge of divorce by the start of Season 2

They seem to have had arguments at times during filming, but they stayed together during and for some time after production.

According to SFX magazine's "Episode Guide to the Galaxy", that masterpiece of television science fiction "The Beta Cloud" was written with the emphasis specifically on Maya and Verdeschi in order to allow Landau and Bain a vacation in the south of France. Whether this was health related, I have no idea.

Yes, the Landaus were on holiday. It was not health related- they had holiday written into their contract. During Year 1 production shut down when they went on holiday (between Force Of Life and Alpha Child)- the tight schedule of year 2 meant production had to continue. Hence Beta Cloud is a "double-up" episode (noted on the script title page) filmed on it's own.

Martin

From:  MCK067@aol4tag.com
Date:  Thu, 30 Jul 1998 08:41:25 EDT
Subj:  Space1999: Rooolz of Looooton...

A piece of mindless Freiberger crapola...the whole premise of this show is absurd. You have a planet to explore, and you're going to do it with THREE people? That makes no sense (but what in this episode does?). You'd take an entire team down to explore, but I guess that didn't fit in with Freiberger's "vision." Anyhoo, IMHO the talking trees are just plain silly, the monster suits were laughable (especially the hairy guy. Looked like he had a bad case of mange), the 1-hour transformation blunder is inexcusable (dramatic license my foot -- that's just sloppy scripting). But, as is often the case with the Y2 "stinkers", there are hidden gems in the middle of the muck. The conversation between Koenig and Maya is just such a moment...but that's really the only reason to watch this episode. I especially like Koenig's expressions when he talks about the loss of his wife. I think the most touching is when he struggles for words to describe his late wife, and then describes her as being "like Helena." A love lost and a new love gained, deep pain replaced by even deeper joy. In those few quiet moments, there was more of what Space:1999 could be at its best than in all of Year 2's "action." What a pity Freiberger and Anderson didn't realize that the fans (well, at least this one), watched the show because they cared about the PEOPLE in the situations, not how many stunguns were fired or how many rubber monsters suits got paraded by each week. But then it was back to the schlock...from the sublime back to the ridiculous. I'd give this show a C-. Without that one moment between Maya and Koenig, I think this one deserves an F...

From:  Tamazunchale@web44tv.net (South Central)
Date:  Thu, 30 Jul 1998 14:26:04 -0700 (PDT)
Subj:  OH MY GOD! Space1999: RE: Rules of Luton & Nazis

You are right! Nowhere does it say the global war of 1987 was a nuclear war!! This bit of apocrypha entered fandom (I think) through the Technical Manual, which says (again, I think) that Geneva was wiped off the map by a nuclear device.

Mateo

From:  "Nimoy Pugh" (npugh@ro4tag.com)
Date:  Thu, 30 Jul 1998 16:47:16 -0500
Subj:  Re: OH MY GOD! Space1999: RE: Rules of Luton & Nazis

Geneva was a lone terrorist act I believe.

From:  South Central (Tamazunchale@web44tv.net)
Date:  Thu, 30 Jul 1998 14:40:17 -0700 (PDT)
Subj:  Re: Space1999: The Rules of Luton

Petter, you have once again alleged that Anthony Terpiloff was/is in a bad way. First you said, weeks ago, that he was DEAD--but couldn't actually back up that claim with any hard proof (unless I missed a post). Now Terpiloff was ill with a fatal illness.

Is this true? If you have proof, Petter, let us in on it!

In this case, Freiberger go off easy!

Oh, as to what The Rules of Luton was really all about....not much. Get isolated, run around and fight, run around and fight, run around some more.

Though I think we all agree that the discussion between Maya and Koenig is the bomb!

Mateo

From:  djlerda@juno4tag.com
Date:  Fri, 31 Jul 1998 01:37:17 EDT
Subj:  Re: Space1999: The Rules of Luton

In what way do you mean it is "the bomb?" That it stinks or that it is the bomb that saves the episode?

David J Lerda

From:  Michael Perry (indylibrary@yahoo4tag.com)
Date:  Fri, 31 Jul 1998 08:54:40 -0700 (PDT)
Subj:  Re: Space1999: The Rules of Luton

Ummmmm. "The Bomb" or Da Bom or Da Bomb is slang current in the US. It means the best. (Remember "Bad" ment "Good"?)

Michael

From:  "Simon Morris" (simes01@global44net.co.uk)
Date:  Fri, 31 Jul 1998 01:26:49 +0100
Subj:  Space1999: The Rules Of Luton

Reading posts from various list members in relation to this episode makes me ponder why people *always*have to analyze each episode,or find hidden meanings or philosophies. I know there was a lot of this in Y1 and that many of the episodes in the first year were all the better for it. I also have to say that there was a certain amount of crap too: "Ring Around the Moon", "Missing Link" and "Matter of Life and Death" spring to mind. I didn't find these episodes particularly entertaining at all compare to say "Mission of the Darians", "Dragons Domain",or "Testament of Arkadia".

As I have oft-repeated, I view Y1 and Y2 as two different shows. You may not think this is valid and that they should be regarded as two parts of a greater whole. Fine-that's your privilege! For myself, I avoid Y1 versus Y2 ulcers by seeing each season as pure entertainment and nothing more. With Y1 (a lot of the episodes anyway) I could enjoy on these terms but with the added advantage that I could engage my brain at the same time. By contrast,in a number of Y2 episodes I could switch my brain off......but crucially I still found every Y2 episode to be *entertaining*. And while I don't for example rate "The Taybor" particularly highly,I always found it infinitely more enjoyable than "Ring" or "Missing Link". Its "horses for courses",as we say in England. One man's meat is another man's poison.

I actually liked "The Rules of Luton". Its a totally undemanding 50 minutes viewing and nothing more than a chase picture(as Martin Landau called it). As has been said,the central idea is based on the classic Frederic Brown story which has been featured in a lot of sci-fi stories. Once again,its the *execution* of the episode in SPACE 1999 that lets the whole thing down. Stupid aliens and plants-thats the basic fault of Freiberger's effort. Plus the fact that Luton is known as a town to British people........

To me it was a refreshing change to see the series out on location. The scene where Koenig and Maya discuss their past was IMHO well done and is as valid a background to the Koenig character as any other that might have been painted in Y1(and personally I don't think there was much of a character history created in Y1....) .Schell and (especially) Landau are impressive in this scene which probably single-handedly lifts the profile of the entire episode. The statement by Koenig that everyone came together after the Global War etc etc is a powerful one...an optimistic philosophy that,while not being very original,gives the lie to the belief that Y2 was without any real substance or philosophy. And I have never believed that this contradicts particularly the portrayal of Earth given in Y1(probably because I look for entertainment rather than deep meaning and I see them as separate shows anyhow).

To finish,I'll just say that I do not believe that there was any attempt by Freiberger to draw on any personal or family experiences that he may have had to provide material for this episode. Freiberger was never that sort of writer(as I think he himself stated). For instance,an episode he wrote years ago for STARSKY AND HUTCH, "Kill Huggy Bear",shows that he was just an old fashioned story teller who emphasised character and humour and a straightforward plot which never tended to philosophise or preach. I imagine that all 3 of his scripts for Y2 were written fairly quickly and to fulfil specific production needs,and when you write that fast(and for those specific aims)then I'm afraid its going to show......

For me, "The Rules of Luton" was a fairly fast and entertaining episode,though admittedly totally undemanding and downright ridiculous in its premise. Depends what you want from it,I suppose...:-)

Simon Morris

From:  djlerda@juno4tag.com
Date:  Fri, 31 Jul 1998 01:37:17 EDT
Subj:  Space1999: Re: Rules of Luton & Nazis

My comment was related to the rather fascist description of Psychon- MAYA: "No. Unlike your planet we were all of one race, one religion, one government. Our planet was so rich in resources that there was no separation of classes."
[SNIP]

Ah, now I understand. I remember when I first saw this episode that I was annoyed by this line. For some reason it just struck me the wrong way that Psychon would be this perfect paradise. Obviously the people had a capacity for evil. Just look at Mentor's actions.

He's not making any profound political comment here ("prejudice is bad" is as deep as it gets).

And this theme surfaced in the Gerry Anderson series UFO in the episode "Survival." In that show we are told that racial "predjudice burned itself out." Sorry, but I'm too much of a cynic to believe that human nature has changed all that much. To quote Koenig: "I'll let you know in 40,000 years." And, sadly, I think that you're right Martin. This ethinic warfare is the (unfortunately) wave of the future. Maybe there was something to be said for the grinding heel of Marxist oppression. :-)

From:  "Ellen C. Lindow" (sfdxb@scfn.thpl4tag.lib.fl.us)
Date:  Fri, 31 Jul 1998 08:16:39 -0400 (EDT)
Subj:  Re: Space1999: RE: Rules of Luton & Nazis

Martin wrote:

My comment was related to the rather fascist description of Psychon- MAYA: "No. Unlike your planet we were all of one race, one religion, one government. Our planet was so rich in resources that there was no separation of classes."

OK, I understand better now, but you might want to reevaluate. This line was delivered by a young lady whom we already know led a very sheltered life. She didn't even know her dad was keeping slave labor in the basement! It's possible that everything was not sweetness and light on the planet Psychon. I doubt she would have had her own memories of the socio-political/economic structure of her world, although we're never told exactly when Psychon went to hell in a handbasket. What her father told her would surely be suspect. It could have been some kind of totalitarian regime with facist overtones as you suggest, or, given their technology, a pure democracy where _everyone_ had equal political rights. I expect that no matter what, there was an underclass doing the laundry and sweeping the streets that were not considered part of "everyone". Remember, the writers of our Declaration of Independence had a different interpretation of "all men were created equal" than most of us would give it today. They would have been shocked to learn that we would extend that to Blacks, Native Americans, and (God forbid!) Women. Maya's family were undoubtedly among the ruling class of the planet, and she was repeating the idyllic rhetoric that she had been schooled on .

From:  "Brian Dowling" (brian@hellion.prestel4tag.co.uk)
Date:  Fri, 31 Jul 1998 19:28:30 +0100
Subj:  Re: Space1999: The Rules Of Luton

Hi folks,

Simon wrote:

Reading posts from various list members in relation to this episode makes me ponder why people *always* have to analyze each episode,or find hidden meanings or philosophies.

It doesn't happen just to tv series - after Kurt Cobain's death Nirvana fans were often seen gathered together to analyse his lyrics as if they were the word of God. Same with Black Sabbath or Ozzy Osbourne lyrics - people drive themselves crazy looking for Satanic references, while others grind their way through new Deep Purple lyrics looking for Gillanesque references to Ritchie Blackmore.

There aren't always hidden meanings in works. As I saw on a newgroup recently, "Don't worry Barbara, sometimes a banana is just a banana".

I know there was a lot of this in Y1 and that many of the episodes in the first year were all the better for it. I also have to say that there was a certain amount of crap too: "Ring Around the Moon", "Missing Link" and "Matter of Life and Death" spring to mind. I didn't find these episodes particularly entertaining at all compare to say "Mission of the Darians", "Dragons Domain",or "Testament of Arkadia".

You mentioned *that* episode!!! :-) Smiles and nods his head in agreement with Simon's point.

As I have oft-repeated, I view Y1 and Y2 as two different shows. You may not think this is valid and that they should be regarded as two parts of a greater whole. Fine-that's your privilege! For myself, I avoid Y1 versus Y2 ulcers by seeing each season as pure entertainment and nothing more.

A while back Amardeep suggested seeing Y2 as a parallel universe to Y1, same sort of idea to looking at them as two different shows. To see them as two parts of a greater whole works better if you ignore the Alpha Log at the start of every Y2 episode.

With Y1 (a lot of the episodes anyway) I could enjoy on these terms but with the added advantage that I could engage my brain at the same time. By contrast,in a number of Y2 episodes I could switch my brain off......but crucially I still found every Y2 episode to be *entertaining*. And while I don't for example rate "The Taybor" particularly highly,I always found it infinitely more enjoyable than "Ring" or "Missing Link". Its "horses for courses",as we say in England. One man's meat is another man's poison.

Ah, there's nothing like "leave your mind outside" entertainment. Y2's emphasis on more action and less cerebral content does make for pacier episodes, but it's down to each individual to decide their preference.

By The Taybor, I felt that Y2 was starting to head towards Bernard Matthews country. We're talking turkey here folks, and lots of it - Bernard Matthews is known as a rotund chappie with a Norfolk accent who has a *huge* turkey farm. The list of guests thus far had been good, though not as good as one might expect for a season aimed squarely at US audiences, and the writing had been moderate.

With The Taybor, we hit feathers and gobbling for the first time. Some cringeworthy scenes allied to Willoughby Goddard's (I'd never heard of him when I first saw the story 4 years ago, and still haven't) very over the top acting, some un-Alphan like behaviour and a generally dodgy implementation of a mediocre plotline made for the first sage & onion award of the second season. As Bernard would say, "Bootiful!".

I actually liked "The Rules of Luton". Its a totally undemanding 50 minutes viewing and nothing more than a chase picture(as Martin Landau called it).

The turkey factor is lessened here somewhat, but when a British made programme uses Luton in a story title, things have got to be bad. Around the time it was shown, an advertising campaign for Campari (an alcoholic beverage of some kind) was based around actress Lorraine Chase's accent in saying "Luton Airport". The ads may well have been successful (they spawned a single also called "Luton Airport"), but they said "TURKEY!!!" to me.

{Before people start flaming me, I'm not saying that Y1 was a turkey free zone by any means.}

And I've seen the road sign which allegedly influenced Fred Freiberger to use Luton in the title. I had to stop the minibus I was in, get out and look at the roadsign for myself. My colleagues thought I was mad... I console myself with the thought that it could have been worse. The Rules Of Chipping Sodbury come to mind as a title which would have been taken even less seriously.

Once again,its the *execution* of the episode in SPACE 1999 that lets the whole thing down. Stupid aliens and plants-thats the basic fault of Freiberger's effort. Plus the fact that Luton is known as a town to British people........

Guys in rubber suits just don't make good aliens. Take the Myrka from the Doctor Who story Warriors Of The Deep. It didn't get the story nicknamed Warriors On The Cheap for nothing. Roy Marsden is known throughout the country as one of the finest tv actors around, and David Jackson is best known as Oleg Gan from Blake's 7, and a serious classic British sci-fi fan.

A planet where the vegetation turned is reminiscent of Wyndhams' Day Of The Triffids. The 1980 something BBC adaptation is a very chilling one which is far better executed than the awful Howard Keel film from 20 odd years before. Sadly, ROL lacks the chill factor the BBC series had in such abundance.

The scene between Maya and Koenig has received deserved praise from pretty much everyone involved in this thread. Maya's naivety is exposed when she asks Koenig about human prejudices, and Koenig's words about everyone coming together after the disaster are well delivered. Y1 doesn't seem to show that too much, but if you go with the parallel universe idea...

More scenes like this would have benefitted the show as a whole. We don't know half as much as we should about the main characters in the series, and it was good to see some flesh added to the skeletons of the characters. One great scene does not a gem make, however.

Freiberger's work on shows like The Six Million Dollar Man tend to show that he was more of a straightforward story teller rather than a writer who liked to cerebralise his work.

Not the greatest episode in Y2, but by no means the worst of the lot.

And I'm sure we all know someone we would like to send to Luton to make a green salad... :-)

Brian Dowling - Online Alphan #144 - Birmingham, England

From:  David Acheson (dkach@hot44mail.com)
Date:  Fri, 31 Jul 1998 17:21:02 EDT
Subj:  Space1999: The Road to Luton

Was Freiberger naming a planet after a real-life British town really all that silly? We'd be surprised to learn where many writers get their names and/or ideas from - mainly everyday items or places or events. I am sure it is more common than we think.

I know myself and friends of mine did it when we made up our sci-fi stories during our playtime as kids. We did one 1999 plot that had characters named General Electric,Colonel Sanders, Bill Cosby (Alan Carter's best friend) and Charlie Brown in it. Thankfully, Freiberger wasn't that bad.

If he would have been driving in Canada we would have seen:
The Rules of Tuktoyutuk
The Rules of Moose Jaw
The Rules of Nanaimo
The Rules of Yarmouth
The Rules of Petawawa

etc, etc, etc.

The name of the planet (and the Koenig/Maya discussion) was one of the good things about the episode. Now thats a sad comment on Freiberger's work.

David Acheson

From:  relax@video44tron.ca
Date:  Fri, 31 Jul 1998 17:53:29 -0400
Subj:  Re: Space1999: The Road to Luton

I don't know if Luton is a silly town, but i can tell that it really exists (North of London, along the M1 motorway). Each time i drove by last April, i was laughing by thinking about what Gerry Anderson said in the Space1999 documentary on that silly script idea from Freiberger about speaking plants on a planet named Luton.

The Rules of Tuktoyutuk

Geee!!!! TUKTOYUTUK !

There's no road to Tuktoyutuk, i flew there in an helicopter from Inuvik NWT back then in 1993.

Tought i was the only one who knew about this lost town on the Arctic seashores.

There is a road to Inuvik David ! and you can see good pictures of it on my website :
http://pages.infinit.net/rel under the 'toundra and Yukon' section.

If you're driving in Canada, the only possible rules you could see could be THE RULES OF OTTAWA :)

Andre Beauchamp

From:  "Brian Dowling" (brian@hellion.prestel4tag.co.uk)
Date:  Fri, 31 Jul 1998 23:56:19 +0100
Subj:  Re: Space1999: The Road to Luton

Luton does exist in real life and apart from the airport, is probably best known for its soccer team, Luton Town and a very 1970s shopping centre.

I shudder to even think that it could have been called The Rules Of Milton Keynes... I suppose it wouldn't necessarily be funny until you discover what gave Freddie the inspiration for the title. A road sign on the A12. Now I may be accused of being a sad individual, knowing things about buses, trains and sci fi programmes, but I don't get a thrill out of road signs.

This particular road sign has a green background with a white border around its edge, the road name in yellow, the word Luton and its distance from the sign in white. Like several other road signs, really.

But again it could have been worse - the name could have come from a bottle of booze - the Rules Of Watney (beer brewers from the 1970s), the rules of Bass, The Rules of Campari...

It could well have been worse.

Brian Dowling - Online Alphan #144 - Birmingham, England

From:  "Simon Morris" (simes01@global44net.co.uk)
Date:  Sat, 1 Aug 1998 01:10:53 +0100
Subj:  Re: Space1999: The Rules Of Luton

Brian Dowling wrote:

There aren't always hidden meanings in works. As I saw on a newgroup recently, "Don't worry Barbara, sometimes a banana is just a banana".

Yes....But *is* a banana JUST a banana???( Only kidding)

You mentioned *that* episode!!! :-) Smiles and nods his head in agreement with Simon's point.

Yes Brian,I'm sorry. i've said it before and I'll say it again,the Y1 episode directed by Ray Austin and featuring the character of Ted Clifford was grade 1,class 1 crap :-)

A while back Amardeep suggested seeing Y2 as a parallel universe to Y1, same sort of idea to looking at them as two different shows. To see them as two parts of a greater whole works better if you ignore the Alpha Log at the start of every Y2 episode.

Well, I never liked the Helena Russell voiceovers in Y2. Not being a fan of Star Trek,I just took them to be a rip off of Kirks voiceovers. And I couldn't really see any point in Space 1999 doing that sort of thing.

Ah, there's nothing like "leave your mind outside" entertainment. Y2's emphasis on more action and less cerebral content does make for pacier episodes, but it's down to each individual to decide their preference.

If I want to be educated,I generally read a good book! But as you say Brian,that's each individual's preference. I found much of the philosophy of Y1 to be very engrossing but not too pacey. That's not to say that I found Y1 "highbrow" either though. Interestingly, I have 2 younger brothers and a younger sister who think *both* series of Space 1999 were dumb. Being sci-fi,I suspect for every 100 that love the series(either or both seasons)there at 3 times that many who think its total crud.........:-(

The turkey factor is lessened here somewhat, but when a British made programme uses Luton in a story title, things have got to be bad. Around the time it was shown, an advertising campaign for Campari (an alcoholic beverage of some kind) was based around actress Lorraine Chase's accent in saying "Luton Airport". The ads may well have been successful (they spawned a single also called "Luton Airport"), but they said "TURKEY!!!" to me.

....And I think Gerry Anderson's failure to nip that story title in the bud was one of the most unfathomable things I have ever seen.

The Rules Of Chipping Sodbury come to mind as a title which would have been taken even less seriously.

Ha Ha!!!

Guys in rubber suits just don't make good aliens. Take the Myrka from the Doctor Who story Warriors Of The Deep. It didn't get the story nicknamed Warriors On The Cheap for nothing. Roy Marsden is known throughout the country as one of the finest tv actors around, and David Jackson is best known as Oleg Gan from Blake's 7, and a serious classic British sci-fi fan.

Well,David Jackson, Godfrey James and Roy Marsden are *all* known and respected actors. How they got involved in "Rules" is anyones guess. Were things that bad on the dole queue lads? (For the non-English among us, the "dole queue" is slang for the unemployment line.....) And anyone who was in Blakes 7 I take my hat off to. A great show. Mind you,some of the alien beings on that show were crap too.

More scenes like this would have benefitted the show as a whole. We don't know half as much as we should about the main characters in the series, and it was good to see some flesh added to the skeletons of the characters. One great scene does not a gem make, however.

Yep,I agree with you on all the above.....

Freiberger's work on shows like The Six Million Dollar Man tend to show that he was more of a straightforward story teller rather than a writer who liked to cerebralise his work. Not the greatest episode in Y2, but by no means the worst of the lot.

(Simon nods in agreement while slurping his glass of cider........)

And I'm sure we all know someone we would like to send to Luton to make a green salad... :-)

No comment![smile]

Simon

From:  Tamazunchale@web44tv.net (South Central)
Date:  Fri, 31 Jul 1998 18:44:53 -0700 (PDT)
Subj:  Re: Space1999: The Rules Of Luton

I don't actually know where everyone is from. However, as someone born and raised in the U.S. I have to say the first time I heard the word LUTON was on Space: 1999 and I agree with Freiberger (!!) that, to the American ear, it is intriguing. Now I understand that it is the equivalent of saying here in the U.S. (hint hint):

The Rules of Hackensack
or
The Rules of Brooklyn
or
The Rules of Poughkeepsie
or
you get the idea!

Mateo

From:  Chris Hlady (chlady@escape4tag.ca)
Date:  Sat, 1 Aug 1998 02:01:55 -0500
Subj:  Space1999: Subj:  The Audit of Luton

Hello troupe, I see you've been playing with "speculation" again. Naughty, naughty. You need a licence for such activity.

First off: to Petter, I'm very sorry I left you hanging with the Anthony Terpiloff topic. It seems things have gone rather badly with it. It's a very trying thing to disentangle your argument regarding Terpiloff and your argument regarding Woodgrove/Freiberger. They are very different subjects, and I think dear Paul Dorian can be excused for getting confused regarding your accountability. That said, you sure don't make it easy for someone to understand your point of view.

Next, again to Petter, I think it's best to resolve the Terpiloff question. My fascination with Anthony relates in juxtaposition with Roger Water's chilling The Wall by Pink Floyd, and my own Christian upbringing. Relating to death is, in all cultures, the ultimate question. There's really no need to look too deep into the motives of those who explore its theme. Helping others come to "relative" peace of mind is its own reward. Sorrowful music, film or t.v. prompts acceptance of that aspect of life.

Third, again to Petter, regarding Woodgrove/Freiberger speculation: you blew it, big time. It's one thing for a writer to draw from their cultural heritage, but it's quite damaging to infer personal angst as the reason. Whereas the Hollywood cowboys and indians myth was derived from the personal experience of having Jewish villages pillaged by Russian cossacks, the fear for security against outside threats is a more general human theme to which anyone can relate. The use of these "universal" themes implies nothing of one's personal experience. It merely relays the current cultural myths in circulation.

Fourth, to Ellen and David J Lerda, in regard to racism and fascism: what have you been smoking?

Ellen [wrote]:

Since facism (sic) breeds on racism, it seems to me the scenario Koenig describes is quite likely to occur, and still may.

Illogical and trite.

DJL [wrote]:

ethnic warfare is the (unfortunately) wave of the future.

Utterly wrong.

(Fascism/One government) This line was delivered by a young lady (Maya) whom we already know led a very sheltered life....I doubt she would have had her own memories of the socio-political/economic structure of her world, although we're never told exactly when Psychon went to hell in a handbasket. What her father (Mentor) told her would surely be suspect.
[SNIP]

Babble, Ellen. More unfounded speculation that creates more problems than solutions. The point of contrast in narrative is....drumroll.....contrast. Ignoring the tale of Maya's brother [not Freiberger, Petter], the lost tribe of Psychons is ignoring a good future story line. Remember, very few psychons know the secret of molecular transformation; not all psychons intrude on the minds of others. Why can't you just take the integrity of Maya at face value?

Fifth (pass me one please), regarding "The Rules of Luton" :

Michael J. Willey:

Note it is between "races, classes and religions" not between countries as most 20th century wars have been. It sounds more like a global version of Yugoslavia- local religious and cultural conflicts exploding into violence. The sort of race riots and social unrest that occur from time to time in depressed inner cities. I think Freiberger was thinking more of the terrorism that marked the 1970s than the cold war...

Excellent analysis.

MJW [wrote:]

Can people ever wipe out their prejudices? Maybe I'm too cynical.

I don't think that's the right question. I prefer, "what defines beneficial prejudice?"

MJW [wrote re:](Monsters)

Abe Mandell ordered the producers to include monsters (monsters were all the rage in America, he told them). They urgently had to produce stories featuring alien monsters, and try to produce monster costumes. Rules Of Luton is the first episode to obey that- hence the sorry costumes in this episode. All three Freiberger scripts were written quickly to keep the rubber monster quota up and to allow double up shooting.

Hmm. Interesting.

MJW [wrote:]

By Bringers Of Wonder, the monsters looked much better.

I saw an early (1960s) episode of Dr. Who. What should be there, but the monsters of Bringers of Wonder. Go figure.

Petter [wrote regarding Y2]:

Sometimes its nice with the world of fine wines, good food, classical music, live theatre, travel and Year One, sometimes it's okay with homemade beer, junk food, pop music, puppet theatre and Year Two. Heh heh.

sigh

Finally, I have no doubt that Freddie Freiberger is a pro. He took a big budget TV show, and delivered 24 acceptable episodes. Utilizing the talents of a large staff of people is no mean feat. The real question is: do you think you could do better?

Chris

From:  Mark Meskin (plastic.gravity@new44rock.com)
Date:  Sat, 1 Aug 1998 04:16:00 -0500
Subj:  Re: Space1999: Subj:  The Audit of Luton

That said, you sure don't make it easy for someone to understand your point of view.

Oh no, Petter makes his point of view very clear, unfortunately, its one that a lot of us don't share...which is just fine.

Sorrowful music, film or t.v. prompts acceptance of that aspect of life.

Forgive me for saying saying so, but this sounds like you a re trivalizing death here.

Third, again to Petter, regarding Woodgrove/Freiberger speculation: you blew it, big time. It's one thing for a writer to draw from their cultural heritage, but it's quite damaging to infer personal angst as the reason.

Petter was merely speculating...I say give him a little space, after all, no one else was trying to find meaning in FF's dribble......

>Since facism (sic) breeds on racism, it seems to me the scenario
>Koenig describes is quite likely to occur, and still may.

Illogical and trite.

Logical and factual. If you dispute this theory's validity, I suggest you ask a Jew who survived the holocaust just how "trite" his or her experience was.

>ethnic warfare is the (unfortunately) wave of the future.

Utterly wrong.

Really...do they not have news up the great white North? With renewed fighting in Yugoslav states how can you say this.. The mideast also continues to be a great place to kill your (insert favorite disliked ethnic group here)neighbors.

Babble, Ellen. More unfounded speculation that creates more problems than solutions. The point of contrast in narrative is....drumroll.....contrast.

Rude...but I agree that sometimes a Banana is not a Kiwi.

>with homemade beer, junk food, pop music, puppet theatre and Year Two.

sigh

Face it, series 2 will never be thought of as High Art.

Finally, I have no doubt that Freddie Freiberger is a pro. He took a big budget TV show, and delivered 24 acceptable episodes. Utilizing the talents of a large staff of people is no mean feat. The real question is: do you think you could do better?

ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!!!! At least I wouldn't have messed with what worked and turned the show into a cartoon...............

From:  djlerda@juno4tag.com
Date:  Sat, 01 Aug 1998 07:16:54 EDT
Subj:  Re: Space1999: Subj:  The Audit of Luton

Fourth, to Ellen and David J Lerda, in regard to racism and fascism: what have you been smoking?

I can only speak for myself: nothing that would make me flunk a whiz quiz.

>ethnic warfare is the (unfortunately) wave of the future.

Utterly wrong.

Please check the headlines. Offhand I can think of the Bosnian civil war, the war in Chechnya, the current mess in Kosovo, the war in Turkish Kurdistan , the Rwandan genocide and other conflicts in Africa. That's off the top of my head. That's not including religious based strife like Northern Ireland, the Middle East, and India / Pakistan (with nukes thrown in too boot - that one ought to make everyone sleep better at night). Perhaps I should have said that ethnic warfare will be the driving force between the conflicts that will continue to break out in the world.

Finally, I have no doubt that Freddie Freiberger is a pro. He took a big budget TV show, and delivered 24 acceptable episodes. Utilizing the talents of a large staff of people is no mean feat. The real question is: do you think you could do better?

I don't know. I've never been a film producer. But we can judge RESULTS: there was no third season.

David J Lerda

From:  South Central (Tamazunchale@web44tv.net)
Date:  Sat, 1 Aug 1998 12:39:12 -0700 (PDT)
Subj:  Space1999: Motivation of the Judges

As the trees IIRC are referred to as "judges" who are they judging? What is the heirarchy on this planet.

How do they enforce their laws? And what are they? DON'T CROWD OUT OTHERS SUNSHINE! DON'T EXTEND ROOTS INTO OTHERS TERRITORY?

What Koenig and the other three aliens are involved in seems more like diversionary spectacle to keep the masses distracted.

With the power to nullify the gravitational forces of the planet (which I speculated DID NOT occur--it seems more logical that they had the means to shift the planet dimensionally) and bend light around it (though when the eagle sees the planet reappear they are well within the atmosphere--more proof for my idea), why couldn't they just have stopped the alien ships from landing. Or warned them away.

Koenig says as much. So they were allowing the violence and then taking advantage of it to provide spectacle.

Mateo

From:  jcg@vh4tag.net
Date:  Sat, 01 Aug 1998 19:31:28 -0400
Subj:  Space1999: Such discussion I never saw

Not a bad bit of discussion for a run and jump plant show.

As to writer's psychology and subtext, I can't wait to see what comes up for Devil's Planet.

Tight leotard clad women with whips...hum...someone wanna give me a match for my cigar.

From:  David Acheson (dkach@hot44mail.com)
Date:  Sat, 01 Aug 1998 19:31:55 EDT
Subj:  Space1999: Time Out Please

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Some refers to the spin-off thread.]

I have no problem with Petter and Chris airing their differences but we seem to be beating a dead horse here about Freiberger, his personal life and World War III. Nothing new has been said lately and, as a digest listmember, it fills up almost everyone email I get from the list. Thus, I hate to be a spoil sport but maybe you two should consider continuing your discussion off list. Both have some valid points and also some points which we will end up disagreeing with. I don't mind the conversations/battle of the wits but do find it neverending.

I noted Mark's comment about us Canucks not being in tuned with the news up here! I know Mark meant it as a "What have you been on?"-type of comment in reference to Chris disagreeing with David Lerda and Ellen's comments about racial/ethnic warfare. So no bad thoughts from here. However, I must agree with David, Ellen and Mark. One just has to watch the news to see what strife is going on out there. In this day and age religious and racial tensions still are behind many of the world's problems. The Bosnia situation could have easily led into a expand war with Russia on one side and NATO on the other. Even the US and Canada are not totally free of such problems. So Koenig's third world war was not totally impossible. I find Maya's idyllic world too unrealistic but have to agree with her comment about people killing people just because they are different: "That's disgusting!". I speak from personal experience about being considered/treated different - enough said there.

Wow. I just rambled on after saying to cut it out. So comment away anyone else.

I think David Lerda hit the nail on the head about Freiberger. He was an exec who lived in the land of business and ratings. Year Two followed that philosophy due to the Americanization of the series. He definitely was not thinking artistic value. I have no idea what Norwegian television is like Petter. Perhaps you can tell us? But judging from the British imports we get here I do see a definite difference between British and US styles indeed.

I will stop rambling now.

David Acheson

From:  David Acheson (dkach@hot44mail.com)
Date:  Sun, 02 Aug 1998 06:41:21 EDT
Subj:  Space1999: Luton, Luton, Everywhere

Last night I was watching an episode of the old classic MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS. One skit was about a hijacker on a plane bound for Cuba . He was trying to hijack it to Luton. It figures! What are the chances I see this during the week of our heated debate over the LUTON episode of 1999.

How did it turn out? Well he jumped out of the plane when he couldn't change their direction and landed safely on the ground and boarded a bus bound for Luton. However, there was a hijacker on the bus who wanted to take it to Cuba. That's MONTY PYTHON for you.

I can just see the flood of Luton series on the horizon now!

David Acheson

From:  David Welle (dwelle@online.dct4tag.com)
Date:  Mon, 03 Aug 1998 00:09:50
Subj:  Space1999: Luton

My review of "The Rules of Luton," sans one scene....

There's been a 42 day space storm, but on the other side, the Alphans discover a planet. An Eagle is sent, but gets an oxygen leak, forcing Tony to drop off John and Maya, and return for another Eagle.

They eat a berry and pick a flower, and all hell breaks loose. I have no idea why they start running away right afterward, instead of trying to reason with the voice, although I suppose the voice sounded beyond reason, and against the showing of lightning and other powers, flee to a slightly more sheltered location, where they try contacting Alpha. Instead, three plants calling themselves the Judges of Luton appear on the screen, and promptly make a judgement against the Alphans and, as punishment, set them to battle, to the death, against three other aliens who commited the same crime, forcing them -- this time for more obvious reasons -- to flee again.

Arrowheads. Maya's puzzled by the word. Good, someone's paid attention to the fact she's not from Earth, and certainly not from North America.

In regard to the aliens...

Maya: Must we kill them?
John: Maya, yes, if we want to survive.

Maya argues they should try making contact. John sees the reason in that, but naturally makes sure there will be some distance (a canyon) between them. John finally starts erasing footprint evidence, and tells Maya to stay on hard ground. Has he had some training at evasion, or is this just being intelligent?

The strong alien hurls rocks at John and Maya for their efforts at contact. The three aliens aren't interested in talking. I actually liked the appearance of the aliens. Each was different, and I thought the prosthetic and costuming work was good.

Maya and John swimming. That scene was cut out by the Sci-Fi Channel, making it seem like a discontinuity, in that a RIVER somehow ended up between the two groups. They had to have swum it, of course, but I still appreciate seeing a complete version of the episode, at last.

The Alphans try communicating again, but the others are uninterested.

John tries to argue with the Judges, asking, "Why must we kill to save our lives?" The judges are unswayed (hmm, there's a pun in there, I just know it :-)

John: Obviously, animals are a lower form of life on this planet.

Then, there's this little bit:

Judge: We pride ourself on our justice, our fairness.

Pride. The Judges have long since closed their minds. In "fairness," the Judges have given the three aliens additional powers. Given the already uneven 3-2 odds, this of course suggests that the Judges are aware of Maya's powers. The others' "gifts" aren't all revealed immediately, except for one, who appears extraordinarily strength that John doesn't think even Maya could duplicate. The other two are even more unusual, totally beyond any Alphan capacity: psychic transportation, and invisbility, as we'll later see (that's definitely gotta be a pun!). Put together, these three abilities seem far beyond Maya's capacities, except that she is so flexible, such as being able to take to the air to spy on the aliens.

I don't know why it takes the alien so long, but the one finally uses its teleportation "gift" to instantaneously cross the river, surprising Maya by leaving her on the wrong side of the river know, away from John, who is promptly attacked and nearly killed by the alien. Maya finally arrives, and after a couple useless dive-bombings, makes another metamorphosis to scare the alien off, only she is -- not for the first (last?) time in the series -- just too frightening, for the alien stumbles backwards into the river, where it ends up drowning.

She feels regret at this result, not having wanted to kill, directly or indirectly. However uncivilized her father had been to others, he still taught her a high degree of civilization, or she got most of it and her empathy from her mother.

Then Maya tenderly sees to John's wound, which is a nice little scene. In fact, the two of them are getting along very well together. The looks of concern on Maya's face at these and later points are priceless as well. Some actors come off as monotonic, too cool when it seems they shouldn't be, and so on, but not Catherine Schell -- she handles a variety of emotions very well, making Maya very expressive.

John tries to carry off the rock lance, which seems odd, considering its weight, his injury, and her abilities. OTOH, it seems he should have at least some weapon, so maybe it's not such a bad idea after all.

Tony is trying to find the planet, which has vanished.

John and Maya find more evidence of dead animals. Curiously, they all seem to be dinosaur-like. "Where the animals made their last stand." ... "Can you imagine the battle that must have taken place...?" Back to the plant vs. animal theme. It just seems silly again.

Maya looks for the two aliens. Strangely, she lands, and nearly gets caught (presumably to be strangled) by the plants. It's a silly scene, for she has no reason to land -- why not just keep flying? She may have a bird's brain at the moment, but why would even a bird land in this case?

One alien, on seeing the bird, vanishes, while the other uses the mesh he wears to fashion it into a cage. The latter may be a warrior's outfit, or simply a means of catching and transporting food (not a pleasant thought in regard to Maya, either).

Koenig seems to have an affinity for old weapons. First he makes an arrowhead comparison, then starts fashioning a rock-throwing bolo. Maya chides him for not resting, and that starts a whole other part of the episode, namely that key scene with John and Maya, but that's really a whole other post, and will make it such.

Continuing past that, they finally realize they are being approached by an alien. They can't see it, only the weapon, and Maya transforms again in hopes of smelling it out. She does, but again, she shows that her intelligence seems to flee when she transforms into less intelligent creatures, for she keeps barking so close to the very thing that's holding a big enough rock to make a mess of her.

I've argued in the past that she really doesn't seem to "carry" much of her mind with her when she transforms to less intelligent creatures, and these sorts of things are the reason why. Koenig (and in some episodes, others) speak to her, in animal form, as if she understands, but I don't think she does, but is simply carrying out whaterver instructions she "leaves" for the animal form to carry out. The real world reason is simpler, of course, in that the directors only had the *animals* to work with.

Here, the alien loses its balance with the heavy rock, falls backwards, and is crushed to death by the rock.

Shortly afterwards, Maya, now as a bird, carries a bit of cloth to wet to clean John's wound. When she alights, however, she is caught. This last part has a rather bad filming discontinuity, for first we see the bird on what actually looks like dry ground, then the alien seems to swipe at WATER, where we can't even see a bird (!), then he's holding and caging the bird. Of course, this is because it really wouldn't be good to film the thing for real, considering the live bird would either flee or get hurt, but the pantomime is poor, and the change of surface is awful.

Koenig contacts the Judges, and tries to give himself up, in place of Maya, but they refuse. Koenig, like Carter did on at least one occasion, tosses the still useful commlock away. Yes, people can be emotional, but you'd think a resource strapped Alphan would temper his wasteful anger more. Later, the Judges allow Koenig and the alien to communicate, and it becomes apparent that the alien really doesn't want to kill either.

The "strong" alien has finally outsmarted one Alphan, and has a hold over the other as well, which he uses, drawing Koenig off the high ground and into a battle sort of reminiscent of the one in Star Trek's "Arena," though fought with even more primitive weapons.

The climax is practically identical: in front of the more powerful force that has them *all* captive, the victor (be it John Koenig or Jim Kirk) declares he refuses to kill the loser (unnamed alien or Gorn).

That brief moment of nearly identical plot diverges long enough for the Judges to refuse to release Koenig, the alien, and Maya from their "Rules" (as opposed to the powerful overseer in "Arena" -- the name escapes me -- who saw Kirk's way more quickly). The Judges sound absolutely bloodthirsty, while none of the three survivors -- all alien to each other -- really want to kill in the first place. Koenig finally confronts the Judges on their thirst for death back at them, in front of all the other citizens of Luton. The Judges stand firm for a moment; it's only when the rest of Luton's people -- the other plants -- rebel against the Judges' decision, that the Judges finally relent, and let the world reappear in front of a startled Tony (I liked those couple of seconds right then), and Maya and John off the world, which will obviously be unsuitable for Alphan colonization.

Oh, and yes, I think the Judges did change from a group of wide, deciduous trees, to rather more thread-bare conifers, and back to deciduous form again. Jeez, someone must have grabbed the wrong slide at that point.

I like what Mateo said about the Judges' motivation. Given the powers they -- or most likely the whole plant world as run by the Judges (think Gaia, or something along the line of what the being in "Immunity Syndrome" was capable of) -- they likely could have prevented the Alphans' landing in the first place. At very least, when John and Maya had landed, the Judges could have warned them away -- in that powerful voice of theirs -- from eating anything. I agree it's like Mateo said: they wanted the spectacle. It was the Roman Colliseum all over again. The citizens finally got the Caesers to give a thumbs up to the survivors.

Tony, inappriately enough, on return to Alpha, gives Maya some plants. Well, she doesn't seem to mind, but Koenig definitely does.

At 03:17 AM 07/27/98 EDT, David Acheson (dkach@hotmail.com) wrote:

Fred Freiberger himself decided to try his hand at writing an episode of the series. [....] Strangely enough he wrote them under a pseudonym, Charles Woodgrove. Was he embarrased by them? Not likely as our exhibitionist producer was one of the first to push this fact. So why the penname?

Or was that the trend amongst producers who tried their hand at screenwriting at the time? I think someone commented that producing and writing are almost like different worlds, and I wonder if this implies that if/when producers did want to dabble in writing, that they, the other writers, and the series as a whole would be best off doing it under a pseudonym.

It's a somewhat different arena, but authors -- even good ones (e.g. Isaac Asimov) -- take up pen names (e.g. Asimov as "Paul French") for some of their works. In at least some cases (I'm not sure about Asimov), I suspect they do that because they want to try their hand at a different kind of story or series of stories than they are known for, just for the "fun" of it or for other reasons, and don't want to endanger the reputation of their real name if the pseudonymic material flops.

Nowadays, the reverse seems to be true, such as with JMS with Babylon 5. I don't know, this is all just speculation on my part.

Again, this is all a lot of speculation. In the case of "Luton," it was probably a safe bet anyway, because this is a weak episode, the poorest, IMO, of Freiberger's three "Charles Woodgrove" episodes.

The idea of intelligent plant life is not a totally unbelievable concept

I agree: not totally unbelievable, in science fiction; but the idea generally doesn't appeal to me to start with. I've seen the sentient and/or hostile plant concept in several series and movies, and it rarely comes off as anything better than cheesy.

Y2 wasn't the first to play with this in S19: Y1's "Troubled Spirit" started off with that plant seance scene that makes me cringe. First off, I'm not the least bit keen on the idea of seances to start with, but a seance to communicate with plants? I'd rather "believe" in the Judges of Luton, than that (as far as the idea of intelligent plants go). As far as seances go, I liked "Troubled Spirit" and also Y2's "Seance Spectre" for showing how dangerous or, even better, how simply misguided the idea could be -- but I'm getting off the immediate topic now.

but it could have been handled a lot more interestingly. The whole vegetable versus animal conflict was transformed into a remake of the STAR TREK episode, THE GAMESTERS OF TRISKELION (which itself was rather silly).

Actually, it reminded me of both "Arena" and "Gamesters" -- those two words apply very well to this episode. Two or more combative parties set against each other by an overseeing force, the crucible of battle to force out the truth or simply to have offending parties eliminate each other.

Was there an intelligent plant episode in the original Star Trek?

Sometimes even Freiberger himself did not have a clue as to his own set up for the series. We know that Maya could only hold her transformations for an hour but she did not necessarily have to transform back into herself before changing again. And yet this appears to be the case when she is captured and caged in the form of a bird. I remember reading once about Freiberger being asked about this point. He waved it off as writers' licence.

Well, this writer (i.e. me :-) managed to think up an idea awhile back: she doesn't have enough "room" in which to transform. Imagine that in direct form-to-form jumps, she still has to expand halfway (or some amount) back to full size, if even for a fraction of a second. The cage in "The Taybor" was big enough that she could comfortably transform into a smaller form; but the cage in "Rules of Luton" was just too small.

Also imagine too that's its a shortcoming of the process that can be reduced with practice. At first, a Psychon might not be able to do direct form-to-form transformation at all, but instead have to revert to humanoid form first. Maya did that once near the end of "The Metamorph," then managed, shortly thereafter, to do a direct transform -- perhaps her first.

You could call it technobabble (metababble?) or simply some needed background detail, but it feels rather eerie to have, over the years, probably thought out the character of Maya and the metamorphic ability more than the producer who introduced her ever did.

Yes, but he was the fellow who created the character and concept in the first place. Did he think much through in producing the second year or made it up as they went along?

Seems to me that any series makes up a lot as it goes on. New aspects of characters are revealed over time, background comes to the foreground, etc. Yet some ground rules need to be figured out for any character beforehand, and one has to look back as well, to make sure the new aspects add to, not contradict, a characters' histories. I'm not sure it outright contradicted anything seen before, so I'm willing to call it new background detail.

However, Freiberger did shine and partially redeems himself in one rather important moment of the episode and perhaps the whole second season. It is the sequence where Maya and Koenig take a rest and discuss some of their past history.

I agree it's a fine scene in an otherwise mediocre episode. Over half my discussion about this episode will be about just that mere ten percent of it. That's in the other note.

The director this time around was veteran Val Guest [...] and despite the overall unconvincing storyline he does a rather good job.

Yeah, the directing was good. Catherine's acting was great, as usual, as was Martin's. They all managed to pull it off well enough to take the rest of the episode (outside of the one John and Maya scene) from dull running around to actually being mildly entertaining, while that one scene was the best. Indeed, had it not been for the whole plant vs. animals theme, I might have liked this one a little more than the comparable "Arena" from Star Trek, because I liked the direction and acting in this S19 episode more than that ST episode.

Altogether, call it a 2 out of 0-4, or more precisely, a C. Without the one scene, it would have probably been a 1.5 (D+).

That one excellent and interesting scene, in a second...

From:  David Welle (dwelle@online.dct4tag.com)
Date:  Mon, 03 Aug 1998 00:32:52
Subj:  Space1999: Psychon and Earth

The key scene of "Rules of Luton," the one that escapes the bounds of this single episode and has implications far beyond, is the five or so minutes when John and Maya have the chance to pause in their weary flight across the landscape of Luton, chased by three and then two aliens, when they get to regroup, and end up discussing the pasts of their respective worlds, one gone forever, and one lost to distance.

It starts out innocently enough, when Maya chides Koenig on not resting after he's wounded.

John: It only hurts when I laugh.
Maya: Mmm?
John: It's an old Earth joke.
Maya: It's not funny.
John: Well, it was on Earth.
Maya: Fifty years ago.
John: Okay, then tell me some old Psychon jokes.

He unintentionally reminds her of her tragedy, but after a moment of wistful sadness, she explains that Psychon was a happy place, and how most had not left. Her brother and a thousand others left before the end (which sets up "Dorzak"). Others also built spaceships and left as well.

The last partially answers a question that has dogged me for some time. Were there other Psychon survivors, besides Maya and also Dorzak's group. I had forgotten about this line in "Rules of Luton," which indicates that there were other ships, likely heading in a variety of directions.

So there are chances that there are other Psychons surviving in space, perhaps even having established colonies on new worlds, as the Alphans are struggling to do. Of course, Maya has no way of knowing this, so for all she actually knows, she may be the last Psychon alive.

Maya: Nobody shared his [Mentor's] dream. They all left... prefering to take their chances in the unknown.

Maya was caught up in Mentor's dream. Still likely a child, Mentor and Maya's brother may have had an argument over what should become of Maya, but it sounds like the decision was still hers, much as some kids can sometimes, if they're old enough, to say which parent they'll stay with in a divorce, if I'm not mistaken. But Mentor was the father, and the brother was just a brother, and I doubt Mentor, once Maya wanted to stay with her father, would let her be taken away. Who knows. Maybe "teens" on Psychon were of a different personality, and entrusted with more such personal decisions than on Earth.

Regardless of who had finally say or if that was even a problem (that's all speculation), she had wanted to stay with Mentor -- whom she still thought the world of (there's her naivete again, something played on by several other episodes as well) -- and did stay on Psychon.

John: Weren't there any wars on Psychon?
Maya: No. Unlike your planet, we were all of one race, one religion, one government. Our planet was so rich in resources that there was no separation of classes.

I see this bit sparked a lot of heavy debate. I don't take it as there having been races eliminated, religious warfare that one religion emerged supreme from, or there having emerged one fascist government that prevented any free thought or rebellion to found another government. Those are Earth concepts, which may be more common on other worlds, or less common on other worlds. I take it that Psychon was just different. For whatever reason, multiple races did not arise there (lack of geographical separation, or a genetic code that resisted change and divergence more strongly than ours). In a later episode, Maya states "we found our god." That statement has a lot of possible and contradictory interpretations, but perhaps indicated they stumbled on something that was totally convincing to themselves that spread to all, especially if there was relatively little racial, geographical, or social diversity.

Here's a curious thought: what if Psychon, before its environmental travails, comprised only a single inhabitable continent of a not largish size, and that the religion spread fairly rapidly. Think Roman Empire sized as Christianity spread, or the Middle East and North Africa as Islam spread, though I'm really oversimplifying on the Earth history here.

That's the point: Earth, not Psychon. Psychons were likely of a different temperment. Earth is made up of people with a huge variety of personalities ranging from the kindliest to the most violent, with a lot of people in between. Psychon probably just didn't have that variety. Not that her world was entirely free of destructive behavior: Mentor's murderous obsessions and Dorzak's megalomania were signs of that. It may simply have not had as much of those sorts of problem than Earth.

Some people have complained that Maya just seemed too human in personality. Well, I say we've just found the more alien parts of her heritage. It's a change from other aliens in S19, who were either violent, or who were arrogant in their supposedly utopian peace. This is the second time she's stated something to the effect of "Psychon was a happy place," and might not be the last, and Maya seems a good example of what have been the RULE (as opposed to Mentor and Dorzak being the exceptions -- and even Mentor still had a jovial nature mixed in his personality). If we take Maya's statements -- and Maya herself -- essentially at face value, I think we have much of Psychon personality in view. They were generally a non-divisive, satisfied people.

As to the world being resource-rich, that would only add to the idea that there was little to fight over, which could have made a single government, and it probably wasn't as massive as just about any government on Earth is, considering there's less reason or nature for arbitration of resources, judgement of individuals, law enforcement, and so on. No, I don't think that gets rid of every day-to-day difference, or of different people having different jobs (e.g. world leading scientist vs. janitor), but don't forget that it's Earth people who tend to look down on one person vs. another for their job. Maybe Psychons just didn't make as big of a deal over it. With plentiful resources, that suggests less reasons for jealousy in that regard either.

Yes, Psychon sounds like a sort of utopia compared to Earth, but in the end, wasn't perfect either. On Earth, there is basically no utopia, and for all intents and purposes, it's impossible anyway. One group may come up with its idea of Utopia, but even having the idea often leads to violence gross physical or subtle mental violence as the originators try to force it on others, leading to such problems as fascism, cults, world wars, etc.

Individual humans vary widely, but human nature is extremely slow to change, such that it could be millenia, eons even, before Earth's character could become like Psychon's.

Yet this is human nature, not necessarily Psychon.

One additional idea was already mentioned: that Maya, being naive, and having so much trust in her father, might have been deceived by Mentor into thinking their world was better than it really was. Hard to say. It seems possible, but I would tend to think that she'd have pretty good access to Psychon's history and other media records. Maybe Mentor could have restricted that as well. Yet Maya was old enough that she saw her brother and others leave, and it seems unlikely that Mentor had the ability, or inclination, or time to hide everything from her. He might not have told her about some of her world's smaller problems, but I doubt he could have hid the worst.

There's not a lot of Psychons that we see, so there's little that we can say statistically, and can speculate it to death. Over the years, I've essentially taken Maya at face value, and see her as the rule rather than the exception of Psychon.

Whew... that covers one side of the Alphan coin. The other, shared by the rest of the moonbase, is Earth's. Psychon and Earth. As much as some individuals of the two worlds had in common character-wise, and as naive but adaptable as Maya was, they came from two very different worlds, and now that John has heard much more about the pleasant world of Psychon before its disasters, Maya finds out about the ugliest facts of Earth history.

It's a shameful history, but he shares it willingly, if sadly, painting a starkly grim picture of a war that killed his wife back in 1987.

Koenig describes a war between "races, classes, and religions" -- no nukes mentioned -- that "was global and awful," apparently beyond even the horrors our world has already had, and that to fight another would mean "the end of humanity."

Maya: You mean... people... killed people, just because they were different from each other. That's disgusting.

Absolutely, Maya. It's ironic to get one of the best, strongest lines of the series, IMO, from one of its weaker episodes. On one hand, it almost sounds a bit trite, but it is so true, and so well delivered in her voice, that it really stands out as one of the best lines, in my mind.

Koenig then claims that the war wiped out prejudice -- that to survive, people had "to work together... accept each other for what they were" -- and describes the beginning of a "brand new, wonderful civilization." People can reinvent themselves, but can an entire world of people do so? I've already argued Earth people could take many ages to do so. Except I have ignored the effects of a war beyond any war we've had. Yet it is still intensely arguable whether even this could jar people enough. Yet we haven't experienced the war Koenig described. People can be pretty thick-headed, and collectively, even thicker, but individuals can be jarred by a major experience, so maybe a whole species could be jarred by a shock of horrendously huge magnitude, like the possibility of going from mass death, as in all wars, to extinction, or at least the utter end of civilization. There's no way of saying where such a threshold, if it exists, is actually "located."

Eliminating prejudice doesn't necessarily eliminate other day to day interpersonal tensions (we've seen them in the series, after all) between any two individuals, just wiped out the more major stupidities. Looking at our past and present world, and imagining "hatreds... between races, classes, and religions" all coming "to a head," at once, what would we have?

Just the conflict WITHIN nations would be immense. Some countries would have extensive internal strive between races, many would have religious strife, most would have ethnic conflict, and all would have class conflicts. Even that's probably understating it, and that hasn't even touched on conflicts between countries (which fortunately didn't seem to go nuclear, as far as we know). Yet even if not every single division everywhere resulted in strife, the bloodbath would be horrendous, possibly upwards of a billion or more deaths before it ended. Such an occurance could shock almost everyone into thinking twice.

The problem with the scene as set by Koenig is twofold: its timing, and totality. I'm not talking about the come-and-gone 1987 (our world must be a bit better after all, if only by a bit, since we avoided this "prediction"), but rather in the speed of recovery. If the war was that bad (not necessarily my speculation but just John's words), it would have taken at least a decade or two to recover from. Surging into space would be a good way to raise people's spirits and give hope of a truly new start and new directions, but the recovery seems a little rapid.

On the other hand, if I recall correctly, we never do see Earth, outside of a hospital room in "Dragon's Domain," until 2120, when everyone lives in domes, and Earth is lifeless. So maybe Earth never really did recover from the damage inflicted, and going into space and embracing technological solutions (i.e. the domes) were the only way they could survive.

This fact alone would be a daily reminder of how close they came to wiping themselves out. Come a prejudicial thought again, many might think, "No, no, NO! That's the kind of thing that got my wife killed, along with a billion others, let loose plagues in its wake, ruined our world, and is going to put us in those damn domes that are being built."

Problem is, of course, that Koenig didn't mention anything about the domes in this episode. Yet the rest of the statement could be a strong daily reminder, and maybe the world was ruined to the point that domes had to start being built after Breakaway, perhaps even more so after Breakaway damage.

Most people would think twice after the horror of a magnitude that even our world hasn't yet experienced, and to many, this shattering experience could even make many people not even want to get to the point of even having to think twice at all.

Yet that leads to the other problem: the totality of the change. Some people would still have to think twice to sidestep any prejudice that remains within themselves, and a few would outright not do that at all, but continue their hating ways, perhaps even more so by blaming various "others" for the war. Most would realize this line of thought is what nearly killed the whole of civilization, would realize that change -- real change -- was necessary for humanity to survive. Adapt or die. Still, again, a few would just not get it, and among those who do, it may still be a conscious process for some. The latter group, along with the rest who weren't prejudiced, would, with all the memories still fresh, likely do everything they could to avoid passing bad attitudes to their children. Yet I'd think at least a few still would. Maybe they'd become a new minority, or maybe they'd be so vanishingly small in number that their impact would be almost non-existent.

The whole paragraph indicates subtleties that Koenig didn't hint at. His view indicates a total change. Yet maybe I'm being too picky, in the sense that the change was so great, regardless the exceptions, that *that* is what stuck in mind, an overwhelming positive, after millenia of war, with only minor negatives that people would rather ignore. Yet the last paragraph also implies that there's still a timing issue, because the true test would be the next generation, and seeing how it turns out. That point, though, is something that might not have really entired John's consciousness at all. Maybe *he* was over-optimistic and overlooked that question, or the need to wait to truly see, wait until those who had experienced the war raised their children, until those survivors eventually passed on themselves, entrusting the planet to generations that had never experienced it.

Is even all of this speculation being too over-optimistic? Perhaps, but it's not something I'd want to find out by "experimenting" with a war of that nature.

What seems to be the trouble with even this war's "silver linings" (rebuilding, working together, going further into space, annihilating the very prejudices that caused the war in the first place) was perhaps, oddly enough, more about its still slightly too optimstic in its timing and totality, as I have argued. From a war in 1987 to a moonbase before 1999, seems just a bit too rapid of a recovery, even if space was made a priority for hope in pointing out a fresh new direction. This strikes me though as being little more than an extension of the same over optimism that gave use the year 1999 in the first place. Dates in science fiction are often too soon; we may be advancing quickly, but not *that* quickly. I even remember reading that some 1930s stories were speculating that by 1980, we'd be living in a Jetson's-like world of hovercraft, jetpacks on everyone's backs, regular spaceflights to the moon and Mars, etc.

Yet now, I'm just wandering myself. The point is that while the timing that Koenig's story sets up is perhaps suspect, the fact of the change *might* not be as unbelievable as it seems. Yet maybe if I adopt the optimism as shown by Koenig, maybe if almost almost every single survivor left on Earth was shocked out of old attitudes, and threw themselves wholeheartedly into such changes, knowing it was either change or go extinct, maybe it could come to pass in the time indicated, and set the stage that would allow Earth, even with its still far greater diversity, to begin enjoying the peace Psychon had.

Maybe.

It's speculation, all speculation. "Can humanity change?" It's the eternal question, and one that frequently arises in SF as well, including being touched on by several episodes of both seasons of S19. Maybe with a great enough horrifying shock, or maybe with a vast enough amount of time. Or perhaps not. I don't have the answers, only a heap more of speculation.

Speaking of heaps, I think I've reached the end of my voluminous discussion of this episode.

My 1.999 cents,

David Welle

From:  Petter Ogland (petter.ogland@dnmi4tag.no)
Date:  Mon, 3 Aug 1998 13:00:23 +0000
Subj:  Re: Space1999: Time Out Please

David Acheson wrote:

I think David Lerda hit the nail on the head about Freiberger. He was an exec who lived in the land of business and ratings. Year Two followed that philosophy due to the Americanization of the series. He definitely was not thinking artistic value.

Yes, but although I basically agree with David Lerda, I still think that a professional writer cannot sit down and write something completely out of personal or cultural context. Spendig much of my time planning and writing computer programs all day, I know that even in this very technical and formal way of writing there is nevertheless a touch of personal style that will discriminate one writer from another.

Even if Freiberger was not thinking in artistic value, although I do believe he had some sense of artistic value although different from mine I believe, I think his fingerprints must be all over the script although difficult to understand.

I have no idea what Norwegian television is like Petter. Perhaps you can tell us? But judging from the British imports we get here I do see a definite difference between British and US styles indeed.

Norwegian television is more similar to British style than US style I believe. Norwegian taste and style in film is not unlike the one of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, I suppose, although less international in scope and seldom exported. Woody Allen is perhaps being the closest US equivalent of the style except for Norwegian style being less neurotic and having no humour.

Like most of the world we import a large amount of US TV, Seinfeld, Friends, X-files, Baywatch etc. We also import greatly from the rest of the world, Europe in particular.

Petter

From:  Atomic Possum (atomicpossum@toast4tag.net)
Date:  Mon, 3 Aug 1998 10:23:55 -0500
Subj:  Re: Space1999: Time Out Please

Petter, I would be absolutely fascinated (although in a completely morbid way) to hear your analysis of any episode of 'Baywatch.'

Is the whole show simply a play about the dangers of skin cancer?

From:  djlerda@juno4tag.com
Date:  Mon, 03 Aug 1998 12:02:47 EDT
Subj:  Re: Space1999: Luton

(as opposed to the powerful overseer in "Arena" -- the name escapes me

The Metrons.

David J Lerda

Related Threads (in typical Thread Pages format):

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• Episode Guide at The Catacombs
• Some fan fiction stories listed at the Space: 1999 Fiction Archive may be based on or around this episode.

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